


Space Cocoa

by midnightwaterlily33



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Awkward Flirting, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fairly minor though, Fluff, Gen, Hot Chocolate, Hunk (Voltron) is so Pure, Keith (Voltron) is Bad at Feelings, Keith and Shiro are Adoptive Siblings, Light Angst, M/M, Panic Attacks, shiro is only mentioned
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-21
Updated: 2017-06-21
Packaged: 2018-11-17 02:15:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,280
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11265861
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/midnightwaterlily33/pseuds/midnightwaterlily33
Summary: Keith hates sentimentality. He hates when they try to include him by forcing him to open up when sometimes he just... can't. Not unless it's done in the right way. Sometimes the help he needs comes in unexpected ways.AKA: Keith is upset, Hunk tries his very best, and then some emotional resolve is found in a cup of weird space hot chocolate.





	Space Cocoa

**Author's Note:**

  * For [aceveria](https://archiveofourown.org/users/aceveria/gifts).



> PLEASE excuse my title...  
> This is a gift for AceQueenM for Voltron Positivity Exchange on Tumblr! It's a day late, and I'm so so sorry!! I hope you like it though!! 
> 
> Also I have no excuse for how silly this is. It’s maybe a bit OOC, but if it was gonna be Heith, it had to involve Hunk cooking and cheesy comfort. Also I wanted to finally write something that isn’t straight-up angst so that I could get the chance to use the phrase, “Shiro’s Disappointed FaceTM” without it ruining the mood.

Keith _hates_ it when they ask him questions. And he’d be lying if he said he didn’t resent having to listen in too, during these times when everyone gets all sentimental and nostalgic.

            He can _deal._ He can sit back and tune it out when everyone laughs over old memories from home, or trades funny personal stories. He wishes they would just be content with his presence, because honestly, Keith has nothing of his own to share. He knows that the reason they turn the spotlight on him is to make him feel better, make him feel _included_ as if he was honestly going to be wounded over it. He’s used to this, truly.

            But he _hates_ it.                                         

            _Hey, Keith, what did you want to grow up to be when you were little?_

_What was your favorite thing to do when you were back home?_

_What’s your favorite sport, Keith?_

It’s questions like these, the ones with really uncomfortable answers, that really grate on his nerves.

 

            “Keith! Hey, Keith!”

            Keith jumps at Lance’s calls of his name, and turns. “What? Why are you yelling?”

            “Because I’ve been calling earth to Keith for like the last ten minutes. You aren’t even listening to the conversation. It’s no wonder you messed up the mind meld so bad today.”

            That comment hits Keith in a really sore spot, and he thinks Lance knows it, especially when he answers Keith’s glare with a seemingly innocent question.

“Keith, what’s your favorite food?”

            “Really?”

            “Come _on,_ just answer it. Be part of the conversation for once.”

            “What is this, truth or dare?” Keith asks, deadpan.

            “No, it’s just… questions!” Lance nearly throws his arms out in exasperation as he says it. “Stop being so closed off, it’s literally an innocent question! We’re just hanging out.”

            Keith clenches his fists, but the phrase comes out as more of a mumble than he intended.  “I… I don’t have one.”

            “How can you…”

            Keith _hates_ this. Today is not the day for this, for Lance to keep _pushing_. “I just don’t, okay? God! For fuck’s sake, I lived in a one room cabin with my dad for half my life, and foster care for the other!” He’s standing suddenly, whirling around to glare down at Lance, Hunk, and Pidge where they sit on the couch and just _stare_ up at him as his words are registered. Here he goes, opening up the way they _wanted_ him too. But as usual, it isn’t pretty. “We hunted illegally. Ate food from a foodbank. And then I lived on premade eggs for two years! I don’t _have one.”_  

            He _hates,_ even more than the questions, the way his eyes begin to sting at the admission he’s just made.

 

 

            He leaves the room before they can say anything else, his pride the only thing keeping him from running as he heads for his room. And, if he’s honest, he doesn’t want to go to his room, but that’s the only place he _has._

 Maybe he wants to train, and then he’d feel tired and then he could sleep and forget about this, but he doesn’t want to spar Lance after _that_ and Shiro is decidedly… busy.

            He’s been working with Coran and Allura on strategy all day, apparently. In a rare loss of his impressive patience, he snapped at them all to settle down and stop interfering earlier when Lance and Hunk were talking too loud and Pidge was tinkering with a robot behind his back instead of listening.

            And perhaps, that morning, Keith _had_ failed the mind meld again. He knows Shiro was disappointed in his inability to open up. He couldn’t help but feel a bit like Shiro was disappointed personally in him.

            He knows that sometimes they all wear on his patience, even Keith. It might have taken all eight years since he’s known Shiro, but Keith has finally figured out that he has limits too.

            If Keith still feels ignored by him, he won’t say it out loud.

            Keith climbs into his bed, leaning back on the pillows as he quietly waits for the rage to die down. Perhaps he isn’t even _angry,_ not really. It’s more like… frustrated. Half of him immediately feels bad, now that it’s quiet. But would there ever be a time when they would all try to _understand_ why he can’t just talk all the time?

            He busies himself with tossing his knife up at the ceiling and prying it out again, knowing that Allura will probably kill him for abusing the castle later, but it passes the time and helps quell the gross feelings in his chest.

 

 

            There’s a short but strong knock at his door. Too heavy to be pidge. Too timid to be Lance. Keith’s chest tightens at the thought of having to look up at Shiro’s Disappointed FaceTM. Again.

            He waits, doesn’t ask who it is, doesn’t say to come in. The knock comes again, but there’s no calling of his name, no asking if he’s “okay.” As if anything is really okay anymore.

            So he pulls himself off the bed and mashes the open button for the door.

            And it isn’t Shiro waiting for him. It’s Hunk, with his hands full of steaming mugs.

            “Uh…” Keith begins, but the words drop off.

            “I brought you something,” is all Hunk says.

            “What is it?”

            “Just something I made,” Hunk replies as he walks in the door and steps around Keith and into his room.

            “Uh, come in I guess?”

            “Don’t mind if I do,” Hunk says with a small smirk that Keith has never seen before. “Not like you’d be strong enough to push me out anyway.”

            Keith’s mouth just sort of falls agape at that. When did Hunk get cocky? When did Hunk start teasing him like… like _Lance_ or something?

            “Ah,” Hunk stutters out then, chuckling as he moves to set the mugs on Keith’s dresser, “I was kidding. Mostly.”

            “What’s in the mugs?” Keith asks, to hide how weird he feels all of a sudden.

            At that, a wide smile spreads over Hunk’s face, and he snatches one up and practically shoves it into Keith’s hands, but it’s hot and Keith flinches backward as liquid sloshes out. Suddenly Hunk seems to acquire some lightning fast reflexes and he shields Keith’s hands and wrists with his own hands and somehow still manages to keep a grip on the cup. Hunk’s hands are _huge._

            “Shit!” he hears him swear—another shocking moment for Keith—and then Hunk shifts the mug back to the dresser and wipes what looks like… chocolate?... on the hem of his shorts.

            “Since when do you swear?” are the words that tumble from Keith’s lips.

            Hunk laughs. “Well, since always. I just… well, the princess still scares me a little and Shiro reminds me of like, my dad. So I don’t do it when they’re around.” Hunk reaches out again for Keith’s hands, takes them into his warm ones before Keith can protest. “I didn’t burn you, did, I?”

Keith shakes his head.

“Anyway, sorry I’m a mess,” Hunk continues, trademark nervousness creeping back into his demeanor as he seems to realize he’s cradling Keith’s hands in his again, and he pulls away. The confident and teasing guy who barged into Keith’s room earlier is seeming to be forgotten. “Like I said, this is for you.”

            The other, un-spilled mug is offered to Keith, gently this time, and, skeptical as he is, Keith takes it and looks into it.

            “This looks like…”

            “Yeah, I know,” Hunk says, grinning unbelievably wide.

            Keith sips on the cup slowly, and is wholeheartedly surprised when a warm and _familiar_ taste fills his mouth. Chocolate. Hot chocolate.

            A reactionary, “oh my god” slips out of Keith’s mouth before he can think. It’s _good._

            “I know, right?” Hunk exclaims, obviously proud. “I figured out how to make something pretty close to cocoa powder with all those herbs Allura didn’t know how to use, and then we have all the weird space milk from the mall…”

            It isn’t quite perfect, but nothing they’ve experienced in space is. There’s a mildly bitter aftertaste, and the milk-like liquid is more akin to soymilk than anything, but Keith doesn’t mind. It’s warm and overall sweet and Keith has _no_ idea how Hunk has managed to recreate chocolate flavor, but it’s been done and it’s a miracle.

            Just holding something warm and familiar is suddenly more comforting than Keith had ever imagined. He’d always said—always thought—that nothing particularly reminded him of his childhood, but he’d almost forgotten about those rare nights when he would sit on the basement couch in the Shirogane household. Shiro would help Keith sneak downstairs from his bedroom and make him hot chocolate. They watched scary movies together and laughed at the cheesy effects. If Keith fell asleep—he almost always did—without fail, he would wake up in his bed in the morning. He never ever woke him up, even in the last summer Keith stayed there before the Garrison when he was fourteen and definitely too heavy to be carried upstairs.

            Keith realizes he’d completely _forgotten_ about those memories.

            If he felt weird before, he feels even weirder now. Like his chest is filling with sand.

            Hunk’s voice startles him and he seems to be panicking, “Hey, it’s okay if you don’t like it. I know it isn’t totally right, you can-”

            “Why do you think I don’t like it?” Keith is almost offended at the suggestion, but his voice suddenly comes out soft and strangled

            “You made this really screwed up face just now, like-” Hunk stops short. “W-wait, what’s wrong?”

            “Nothing,” Keith grounds out between clenched teeth.

            “Hey, don’t freak out,” Hunk starts to panic, and the cup is torn roughly from his hands and immediately replaced by the crushing weight of _Hunk_ suddenly _all over him._

            _What the hell are you doing?_ _Get off of me!_ Keith screams, but only in his head because he isn’t sure what’s happened to his voice.

            And suddenly Hunk is sort of crushing him to his enormous chest, and Keith can hardly breathe. He can’t breathe because Hunk’s arms are too strong, but also because he’s suddenly choking on something that isn’t really there. And his mind is playing through ancient thoughts like film. It hurts, but it also feels nice and he’s being hugged and nothing has felt familiar in so, so long. He didn’t think it would be possible to feel that ever again.

            Keith _hates_ sentimentality.

            He _hates_ thinking about these things.

            He _hates_ that something so simple and stupid like a hot drink has suddenly turned him pathetic.

            He hates Hunk for doing this to him.

            Except he doesn’t.

            He comes back to the reality he never realized he left when he feels one of those warm and heavy hands on the back of his head. He opens his eyes to see he’s pressed his face deep into Hunk’s chest. The grip around Keith loosens considerably and he feels his voice in his chest when he tells Keith to take it easy, not to panic.

_Panic?_

            Oh. Perhaps the reason Hunk held him so tight was because his legs are shaking pretty hard.

            “It’s okay, just breathe.”

            Wasn’t it supposed to be someone else saying those words to Keith?

            He focuses on breathing. He tells himself how stupid and pathetic he is for not being able to _breathe._ He stares into Hunk’s chest, a vague yellow shadow across his vision and counts in fours in between Hunk’s murmurs that becomes clearer with every cycle.

            _Pathetic._

            He pulls himself away from Hunk a little too roughly once he thinks he’s got a handle on himself, and sees the wounded look on the yellow paladin’s face. They’ve ended up sitting back on the end of Keith’s bed, a bit too close for Keith’s comfort.

            He can see Hunk holding back more questions. He’s looking at him like Keith just grew a second head, but looks away politely when Keith scowls and wipes his eyes roughly on his sleeve. And Hunk’s arms leave him; move far away from him as Hunk puts a foot between them on the mattress. Keith regrets his scowling face because _god,_ it wasn’t meant for Hunk, it was for himself.

            Maybe it was like Lance said. He ruins things by refusing to open up. Hunk is a genius. Hunk managed to make _chocolate_ in _space_ for Keith, and he doesn’t deserve this.  

            Keith clears his throat, forces himself to look at Hunk even though he wants to bury his head in the bed and never look at anyone again. “Hey…” he says slowly, gesturing to the cups across the room. “Can I have more of that?”

            “Oh…” Hunk looks genuinely surprised at that request, but the smile is coming back to his face and Keith is sure that’s exactly what he likes best about the yellow paladin. His positivity is the most resilient. Probably more than Shiro’s even. “Yeah, of course.”

            There’s a beat of silence, awkward but not heavy.

            “Do you feel better?” Hunk asks.

            Keith nods. “Yeah. I do.” And he’s sure he means it, at least a little bit.

            Hunk sighs, smile coming back full-fledge. “There’s more in the kitchen,” he says softly. “We can go make you another cup before I tell Lance and Pidge about it.”

            Keith almost smiles at that. “You know Pidge would practically pay you for some of this. You didn’t tell them?”

            Hunk scoots back toward Keith, enough to settle his arm back around his shoulders. “No, the first cup was for you.”


End file.
